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As Anuradha Biswa Karma waits for her grade-four textbooks in an obscure part of the Himalayan Kingdom of Nepal, little does she know that there is someone working in Berkeley to send her the money to buy them.
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Single-payer universal health care advocates in California begin their second try in two years to make their cause state law when the state Senate Health Committee holds a hearing in Sacramento this Wednesday afternoon on state Sen. Shirley Kuehl’s (D-Santa Monica) SB 840.
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Assemblymember Loni Hancock sponsored her second major public gathering in her assembly district in two months, holding a town hall meeting on global warming at Berkeley City College that attracted several hundred participants and presentations from several local and state agencies.
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How strong is your commitment to the environment? Is it strong enough to make you alter your lifestyle, switch from favored products or seek out and support environmentally conscious businesses?
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In 1943 Robert Oppenheimer left the University of California at Berkeley to become director of the Los Alamos Laboratory in New Mexico, where the first atom bomb was built. He maintained a connection with the university for several more years but never really returned. Instead, he became director of Princeton’s Center for Advanced Study and a consultant to the government on issues raised by atomic weapons. After his political “disgrace” for supposed disloyalty in 1954, he devoted himself to writing, producing essays and books, notably Science and the Common Understanding. President Kennedy cleared his name and “rehabilitated” him in 1963.
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In thinking about what I ought to tell you regarding these dark days various clichés come to mind: I see no light at the end of the tunnel. The American dream is a nightmare. The American experiment failed. Pride precedeth the fall.
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In 1944 Roosevelt’s call to plant a Victory Garden was answered by 20 million Americans. Amazingly,these gardens in a short time produced 40 percent of all vegetables consumed in this country. (The rest was grown mostly by local farms) Gardens grew in backyards, in empty lots, and on rooftops or public gardens in cities. Even some portion of Golden Gate park was alloted to community gardens.)
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We say that global warming is the result of the burning of fossil fuels, but it might also be said that global warming has happened because the human species has not recognized that all systems on the earth are mutually related, alive and sacred.
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Columns

The latest Gallup Poll indicates that Americans continue to be deeply divided about Iraq. What’s been ignored in this bitter debate is the issue of political stability: How long should the United States stay in Iraq if the elected government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki fails to meet its commitments? Most Americans believe that while the United States should bolster Iraqi security, the government of Iraq must function on its own. The commander of U.S. Forces General David Petraeus acknowledges this: “A military solution to Iraq is not possible;” there has to be a political solution. The key to the future of Iraq is the Bush administration’s willingness to hold the Iraqi government accountable.
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I know: another corvid column. But bear with me. Every now and then I trawl the technical literature at the UC library, and this time I found a jay-and-crow story in the Wilson Journal of Ornithology that’s too good to keep.
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